The best sandwich I’ve ever had. That would be quite a label, wouldn’t it? Of all my 32 years on Earth, most of which has been spent with food in front of me, how absurd would it be for me to point at one sandwich and tell you, “Not a single sandwich I’ve ever had has been as good as THIS ONE RIGHT HERE.”

Well, my chum Ducky and I stopped into World Street Kitchen last week, and … I’m not going to jump off a cliff and tell you the Moroccan Fried Chicken sandwich I had was the best of my life, but I also couldn’t tell you with confidence it wasn’t.

This thing is … I mean, it’s just …

The Basics: World Street Kitchen is nestled right between busy sectors of Lyndale Avenue in Uptown Minneapolis. Across from a yoga studio and an art materials store the size of a K Mart, you could miss it if you aren’t paying attention. Hit the website here – great photos on their front page, as well as what appears to be the entire history of their Twitter feed.

WSK boasts a food truck as well, and they are very good about telling you its location via Twitter.

Ducky jerked us to a stop in front of WSK on a Tuesday evening, one that didn’t see a lot of traffic inside the restaurant. The word “kitchen” fits perfectly in its name, and is the first good descriptor of its metal-driven interior. The famous EAT WSK lights and a row of colorful paintings charge up what’s an otherwise toned-down room.

The menu is full of items that arouse the curiosity, so much that I changed my food AND my beer orders at the last second. I started with lamb belly tacos and audibled to the MFC – Moroccan Fried Chicken – and switched pints to a Day Tripper Ale from Minneapolis-based Indeed Brewery. Ducky ordered a falafel “burger,” and we took seats at a bar surface akin to that of an unpainted car.

The metal bar stools reminded me of the chairs in my high school shop classroom. Etch a few swear words and spill some paint onto them and they’d fit right in. An underrated feature of this restaurant is the self-serve water station that makes life easier for patrons and servers alike. Yours constantly-drinking-waters truly thinks this ought to become restaurant standard.

The food arrived in the snack boats you would expect from the food truck, with a bottle of sriracha. The MFC was perfectly-named — two slabs of fried chicken hung out of a KFC biscuit-esque bun. Carrot strings poked out from under the roof, and a light slather of feta cheese sauce dribbled out under the chicken.

The first bite had to be scratched because I didn’t allow any cool down time, and was rewarded with a mouthful of steam. I revisited my beer, recomposed myself, and went back in.

O. M. G. Let’s really get in on this thing.

If KFC’s chicken tasted even remotely like this, I would have been dead from it years ago. This sandwich advances everything you like about fried chicken and biscuits, whilst being completely clean of the negatives.

Lace your bites with sriracha and it’s just unfair. I can’t think of fried chicken the same way ever again. Oh, and it’s less than $10.

How was Ducky’s “burger:” “I can’t even describe it. It’s just … no grease, but … the flavors … you’ve gotta try it, man.” So, there you have it.

I still catch myself reflecting on the MFC. I’ve never had anything like it. I’ve told as many people as I can about the sandwich; and, when a friend revealed she’d had one before, we talked about it for nearly an hour. It isn’t something you just forget; it might not be something I’ll ever forget.

When I think about the greatest sandwiches, Butcher and the Boar’s lobster grilled cheese comes to mind. The cordon bleu, at Goodfellas in Eveleth, comes to mind. Hugo’s in Duluth, and that club subbopotamus, comes to mind. The MFC slides into this without a doubt, but is it the best? I don’t know. I’d have to sit down with all four of these sandwiches and lift them all, bite into them all, taste them all —

The Juicy Lucy is serious biz in the Twin Cities – so when I tell people “Matt’s Bar was tested and found unworthy,” I know I’m going to get on some shit lists. But first, I’ll give Matt’s this: If I had to guess between them and the 5-8 Club who invented the Juicy Lucy – a million cash if I won, uneven legs and a baby with Tonya Harding if I lost – I’d guess Matt’s.

I don’t know if Matt’s realizes this, though, but their longtime nemesis has reached its tentacles throughout the metro area and new contenders are punching harder than this archaic Minneapolis mainstay. Matt’s will no doubt live forever, but their crown is eroding.

My wife and I hit Matt’s after Mass one Sunday, and the 10-minute wait for seating was pretty good from my understanding. The first thing you realize about Matt’s Bar is they’re cheap, and I don’t mean inexpensive. I mean cheap: In addition to what I already mentioned, only one water was brought to our table, with no ice in it; and soda was sold in cans at something like an 800% markup. I was tempted to ask if Al Bundy owned this place.

You already know what we both ordered. Why would you go there for anything else? We tacked on a basket of fries. For those keeping score at home, Matt’s $5.95 Lucy runs miles below what their competition is selling them for. The food took longer than our table, and the fries looked like they were stolen from the kitchen of a nearby McDonald’s.

Seriously, if you’re not running a fast food place, don’t do skinny fries. Just don’t.

Quick history lesson: I had tried to eat at Matt’s once before with two friends about four months ago, but we got in line behind 12 people and started outside. In the dead of winter, my friends decided to go elsewhere. On the way out, one of them said something profound.

“Their Juicy Lucy tastes like any burger with cheese inside of it,” he said. “It’s all just reputation.”

The moment finally came when the words ceased, the fries were whisked away, the soda can was shoved aside, and I faced the legend. As I raised the burger to my watering mouth, the revelation was finally at hand. Every snarky swipe I stocked up could have been quashed with the simple ecstasy of this one … first … bite …

Didn’t happen.

There was no transformation of reality. My soda can didn’t refill itself. The clouds didn’t fizzle away and my office didn’t call with plans to stay closed an extra day. Nicky Whalen didn’t spring out from behind the bar and lunge at me with a pitcher of Leinie’s. The world was just as it was before I took that bite.

Don’t get me wrong: Matt’s Lucy is a good burger, but that’s it. I acknowledge it’s still the place to stand outside of and snap to get a zillion likes on Facebook, and it’s certainly in the discussion for Minneapolis’ most iconic food item … but, If Matt’s did indeed invent the Lucy, wouldn’t the originator feel some obligation to evolve their brainchild? It feels like nothing has changed about that place in 50 years. That works for some places, but there isn’t a single aspect of the Matt’s dining experience I’d care to relive.

The 5-8 Club now has three locations, which satisfies your visiting kin and your impatience alike. The Blue Door, meanwhile, compensated for its own dreadful wait time by high-fiving the popular Surly brewery and has opened a second location in Longfellow. The Nook has its inferior sister bar The Shamrock; and, five minutes from Matt’s Bar, Vincent A Restaurant is serving a Juicy Lucy nobody else can touch.

So why go to Matt’s? Why wait 10 minutes for a table and feel fortunate, feel like you’re dining at a garage sale, pay 12-pack prices for a pitcher of Mich Golden and eat a burger that supposedly fathered the rest of its kind but finds itself surpassed by many of them today? I can only really think of one reason, and it’s not a very good one.